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1. Think of what animals you have seen recently that had been killed by cars. Were any kinds of animals more commonly killed than others? Why would some animals be more susceptible to being killed?

2. Of the dead animals you've seen, how long would you estimate some of them had been dead? What are some methods for testing your initial hypothesis? What did you learn from this chapter that has changed how you previously would have made such an evaluation?

3. Law-enforcement agencies often use principles of taphonomy to solve crimes. What are some other applications that you can think of that are already in use or could be used?

4. Which of the following modern assemblages of bodies or traces would you term as autochthonous, allochthonous, or a combination of the two, and why?

a. A pile of leaves raked from a yard.

b. Dog tracks preserved in a cement sidewalk.

c. Animal parts in a butcher shop.

d. Piles of hair from different individuals swept just outside the door of a hair-dressing salon.

e. Peanut husks on a bar-room floor.

5. While working as a volunteer on a dinosaur excavation, you find a small (less than 1-meter long) theropod skeleton that is nearly complete, with beetle borings on the bones of its right lateral surface. It is in the bottom of an ancient fluvial channel deposit. Based on this information, develop at least two possible scenarios for the biostratinomic history of the theropod. What possible new information, found at the site or in the skeleton, would falsify each of your hypotheses?

6. An assemblage of dinosaur bones found in an overlying layer at the same site shows numerous bones of the appendicular and axial skeletons (no skulls) of many individuals representing the same species of hadrosaurid. The bones are arranged in such a way that a rose diagram reveals two preferred directions (northeast and southwest) for the remains. The assemblage is mixed with some large theropod (tyrannosaurid) teeth; otherwise no theropod remains are present. Develop at least two possible scenarios for the biostratinomic history of the hadrosaurids. What possible new information, found at the site or in the skeleton, would falsify each of your hypotheses, especially related to the lithofacies (not described here)?

7. What are the discharge and momentum for streams with the following cross-sectional areas and velocities? (For momentum, assume a velocity of 1.0 m/s.)